Per Nilsson, docent at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics, receives this amount together with Evandro Fang at the University of Oslo. Additionally, the funding is 200,000 USD per year for two years with the possibility of extension.
Per Nilsson has collaborated with Evandro Fang for several years on Alzheimer's and autophagy, and they already have a postdoc together funded through a NordForsk grant that Evandro received with Per as co-PI.
This research project is called 'Elucidating mechanisms driving the compromised balance between mitophagy and cGAS-STING-initiated inflammation towards a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.' Alzheimer's disease is caused by the aggregation of certain proteins, which are normally removed by the cell's cleaning function, autophagy. A specific form of autophagy, called mitophagy, specifically controls the removal of malfunctioning mitochondria.
"Autophagy is disrupted in Alzheimer's, and we want to find out how this disruption occurs and whether we can use autophagy therapeutically to reduce Alzheimer's pathologies and improve mitochondria," says Per Nilsson.
"We already have preliminary data from our Alzheimer's mice showing defective autophagy and mitophagy, which opens up the possibility of treating these with various pharmacological approaches from which we hope to obtain data within a year. We will also measure markers in human samples to investigate whether mitophagy changes in the brain are reflected in cerebrospinal fluid and blood plasma during the two years of the project," says Per Nilsson.
